Fagnani, Prosper

, a celebrated canonist of the
seventeenth century, was regarded at Rome as an orator,
and every cause which he took in hand as successful. He
was for about fifteen years secretary to several popes, all
of whom entertained a high respect for his talents, and
frequently consulted him. He became blind at the age of
forty-four, which misfortune does not appear to have interfered with his professional labours, for it was after this
that he composed his celebrated " Commentary on the
Decretals/' in 3 vols. folio, which extended his fame
throughout all Europe. It was dedicated to pope AlexanderVII. by whose order he had engaged in the undertaking, and was printed at Rome in 1661, and five times
reprinted. The best edition is that of Venice, 1697, in
which the entire text of the Decretals is given. Fagnani
continued deprived of his sight, but in full possession of
his mental faculties until his death in 1678, as it is supposed, in the eightieth year of his age. His memory appears to have been uncommon, and the stores of learning
he had laid up before he was deprived of his sight he could
bring forth with promptitude and accuracy, even to a quotation from the poets whom he studied in his youth. 2

This text has been generated using commercial OCR software,
and there are still many problems; it is slowly getting better
over time.
The text was scanned and OCRd several times, and
a majority version of each line of text was chosen.
Please don't reuse the content
(e.g. do not post to wikipedia)
without asking liam
at holoweb dot net first (mention the colour of your socks in the mail),
because I am still working on fixing errors.
Thanks!